


What Tomorrow May Bring

by GiantTribble



Category: Mindy Mirage, Occupy Wall Street - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiantTribble/pseuds/GiantTribble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A novel in the Mindyverse. Ellis, Shaquan and Suzy are three misfits from different times and places in the galaxy whose lives are woven together by a mysterious force.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1: Ellis

The sun was going down and a few stars glittered in the autumn sky. Jayden Moon walked down the quiet suburban lane, soft hood drawn over his sharp-featured Dokkar face. He walked briskly, holding a bottle of birch beer in a brown paper bag.

                “Boy!” A man’s voice broke the silence. “Boy! What are you doing on my property! Get the fuck out!” A heavyset figure loomed in the distance  -  Jayden paid him no mind. The stocky figure ran toward the slim one. The stocky, brown haired man had the pale, clammy skin of a weekend warrior, the small, rounded ears indicating his Terran heritage.

               “Leave me alone!” cried Jayden as the Terran slammed him to the ground with full force. He shoved the body aside, his slim frame belying Dokkar strength, bred for a high-grav world. The stocky man fell, knocking his head – thud – against the grass, scrambling up for another round.

                “Fuckin’ alien, don’t you touch me!” Jayden picked up the pace, jogging at a brisk trot, engrossed in a phone call.

                “I’ll be right over, Destiny. Just dealing with this old Terran asshole in the neighborhood.” Then a gunshot. And silence.

 

**Summer, 3306 Anno Terrae, New Essex County**

 

                The sun, a collection of lit pixels, shone high above Westchester City in an artificial blue sky.

                “We are here in Icahn Square, where protestors are gathered outside the city courthouse for the Johansson trial.” The ivory-skinned Terran reporter in tan formals stood still, professional, her straight, light brown hair gathered in a low ponytail.

                “No justice, no peace!” Groups marched around the square chaotically, shouting slogans. There were some young people in shirts labeled: Justice for Jayden. A young female was at the front of the group. She had close-cropped, sun-browned hair, narrow nut-brown face and slightly overlarge peaked Dokkar ears, pierced with faux diamond studs. She passed out leaflets to curious onlookers.

                “And what is your name, and what do you think about the trial?” The Terran held the mic to the ethnic Dokkar woman.

                “All I want to see is justice for Jayden. His murder is a definite sign that society is unequal. Racism is alive and well in this galaxy. That could’ve been my son. Or yours – what do I know about it?”

                “And your name?”

                “Ellis. Eluveti Swanjetta Glass. I’m an attorney. But I wish I were there as the prosecutor. This is as close as I’m gonna come, I guess.”

                “Thank you, Miss Glass, for your valuable input.” She faced the cam once more. “Reporting live, for Newscast One, I’m Brooklyn O’Neal. Back to you, Rhett.”

 

                Ellis saw herself later that evening on the holovid, sitting on the threadbare couch in her threadbare apartment.

                Tyrese Torelli, an ethnic Terran from Mars, one of her roommates, sat his skinny self next to her and put a tray of food on the card table.

                “Care for some wings?”

               Honey BBQ chicken was usually Ellis’s favorite, but now even the thought of food disturbed her. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t deal until the trial was over.

                “I’m sorry… I just can’t deal.” Tyrese put his arm around her.

                “Dude, Brett Johansson’s gonna go upstate for life. If they don’t give him the chair, that is.”

                Cut to the courthouse.

                “This just in,” said the reporter, a pale brown woman with short, kinky hair and a slight Denebian forehead ridge. “Brett Johansson has been found guilty of simple assault, and not guilty of manslaughter in the second degree. He has been sentenced to two years of probation. He will be released tomorrow.”

                “Hey, Ellis – “Tyrese was going to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ but Ellis was totally frozen. Catatonic. She started leaning over on the couch until she totally collapsed on one side, passing out and starting to snore after a while. Tyrese had to get up in the morning. You know, construction work and all that, so he went back to the room he shared with his girlfriend Hennessey “Henna” Jean Langley.  

 

                As Ellis fell asleep, she contemplated her place in society as a Dokkar person. It wasn’t that there was some sort of supremacy idea going on, like the ancient conflicts between black and white people in North America or South Africa. Most Dokkar people, like her family, hadn’t even been part of the Empire or on that side during the war. But there had been an uneasy tension between them and Terran descent people, no matter how many centuries they’d lived together.

               

                She thought back to Earth history, which she knew better than that which was supposed to be “her own” history. But who could fault her, having gone to Republican schools? She thought about not only the black and white bullshit, but also that of the Native Americans. She thought about what had gone on during the Crusades, between the Christians and the Muslims.  
  
               She thought about how the media upheld this idea of Lumiel and Denebian people as shining examples, ‘model minorities’, and the usual Terran-privilege nonsense about how being half black and half white gave some Inner Systems jackass the right to declare that racism was over. Inner systems? The phrase itself was hegemonic.

               

                Ellis awoke to the smell of coffee – that overroasted, low-grade espresso that Henna liked. Henna filled half of the kitchen cabinet with colorful, vacuum-sealed briquettes of Café Pico, Café Tropical, and the rest of those cheap Noveau American brands that she stocked up on whenever she was able to find a supply. Ellis found a “DuCaine University Facilities Department” mug before her nose and took a swig of the acrid substance.

 

                “So how did everything go yesterday,” Henna asked, crossing her chubby legs and swilling the brew with enthusiasm. Henna’s messy platinum blonde curls complemented her light caramel complexion.

                “Just peachy,” said Ellis. “You know, this is the _34 th fuckin’ century already._ The Dokkar War’s ancient history. More than 30 years ago.”

                “Yeah, I hear ya. My Twitnet feed’s been going crazy. People are out for blood. Everyone’s pissed. It’s like that old Earth saying, your favorite – “By Any Means Necessary.”

                “Malcolm X.” Ellis was glad that her roommate had remembered that.

                “Say… Someone called you on the house phone. Says his name is Del.”

                Ellis looked down at her cell, because she never got calls on the house phone with its precious, precious minutes to be preserved. Three missed calls from Deangelo “Del” Adelphia.

                “Mind if I go off into a corner and make a private call?”

                “Sure.” Henna’s unemployed self continued to watch morning cartoons like she did every day. _Shadow Warriors! Warriors of freedom! We are shadow warriors!_ The holovid blasted some tacky superhero anime as Henna began to feast on hash browns while swilling mug after mug of the blasted coffee-like stuff.

 

                She closed the door behind her, leaned on it and called the cell. _Ring. Ring. Ring._

                “Hey Ellis,” said a deep, yet friendly voice.

                “Hey Del. What’s up? You uh… usually don’t call me this many times. Not even you know, with the situation.”

                “Elle, there’s something I’ve gotta talk to you about. And I know you don’t like politics. I know that. But this isn’t about that.”

                Which meant it was about politics. Ellis attended every protest she could make it to, but that was it. She didn’t want to touch that shit anymore. But politics was like HIV. Once you became politicized, it never left you. There was always something political in your body, disrupting your DNA, sinking into each and every cell. Bran, for instance. He lived and breathed politics and _he still had her number._ Ellis just wanted to be an attorney, work on patents or something grown up like that. But she had enough trouble as it is just being a Dokkar chick in that world.

                “What is it?”

                “You know Jhovany Deermoon’s vice councilman? Lamar Lala? He can’t deal with it anymore. He bounced. I know he had to leave to support his kids.” Jhovany Deermoon was the smoothest Dokkar that Ellis had ever met. Private school education, upper class, polished and perfect, he was the model minority. But Lala ran his shit. Jhovany was just a pretty face. And Lamar Lala was _good._ Nobody knew much about the man, though. Ellis didn’t even know he had kids.

                “So you want me to take over for Lala? You knew I wasn’t into politics. And I’d never even met the man. He’s just not around that much.”

                “It’s not politics. It’s about helping out. Look, other folks in our community are stretched to their limits. Jhovany can’t pay his people. But you’ve had a career, and this will be a jump start to your career. What do you say?”

                Ellis knew that Jhovany was making a move for the actual county council, since a seat had opened up for the first time in ages. He wanted to be the first Dokkar in that seat. But he was already a councilman for the community, taking care of people and representing for them when nobody else would. It would be great if Jhovany – Lala, that is, won that. Ellis had been unemployed for the longest time but she didn’t want to be in the Lala spot. Only Lala belonged in the Lala spot.

 

                “Del, as soon as Jhovany gets it done, Lala’s coming back, right? Vice councilman spots were fully paid. Better than whatever he does, probably.”

                “Don’t worry about it. You’re not working for Jhovany. You’re working for me. The Dokkar People’s Front.” Del was the head of the Dokkar People’s Front, Jhovany its face, and Lala its brains. Ellis was its woman on the street, handing out flyers and being present at every protest, even ones that Jhovany couldn’t make. She was driven by passion, Jhovany by privilege, Del by long, hard experience. Half of her 30 years had been spent spaced out, trying to ignore racism, trying to escape. The other half was about studying and being a hard-nosed attorney, trying to make something for herself. But now, this was all that she had.

                “I’ll pitch in. Elements know that Jhovany needs all the help he could get, and that Jayden doesn’t have any chance of getting justice without this.”

                “Great. I’ll see you here at the office, at 0900 hours tomorrow.”  He hung up, and Ellis wondered what she’d gotten herself into. She had a bit of a sinking feeling, and went back into the kitchen for some of Henna’s coffee. With lots of sugar and milk, to block out the taste.

 

Ellis woke up and this time, she was in the converted walk-in closet where her fold out bed was. She rolled out, causing the bed to snap back into place with a _boing_ , grabbed a random pantsuit from the wall peg and rolled it on. It was a little tight, but it’ll have to do. She combed back her hair with some _Custer’s Blue_ lotion and strolled down the hall to the bathroom, where she narrowly avoided colliding with a surprised Tyrese.

 

                The bus ride from her house to the Dokkari mall wasn’t too long, as they were in the same Fishtown neighborhood. She half-stumbled out of the packed bus and walked to the tiny storefront. A tan, trim Dokkar man of middling height, with blonde-tipped hair and light, pretty eyes, stood in front of the door.

                “What’s up, Jhovani? Haven’t seen you in some time.” They walked into the mall and past the delicious-smelling Karastani kabab stands, cell phone stores, the low-end doctors’ offices and Tarot reader booths. They walked past a sort of supermarket, selling foods common in the Empire, and an arcade-cum-anime shop where young Dokkar guys tapped away, glassy-eyed, at consoles. They walked down some narrow stairs and arrived in a small, dingy office, marked “Dokkar Community Improvement Inc.”, where Del sat at a desk and babbled into the phone.

 

                “Yes, Mrs. Sunstar,” he said in East Dokkar. “Riquelle’s been arrested again? That’s the third time this year…” Del shook his head. “These kids. I’m gonna send someone to bring him his school books. Just in case he’s there for a long time. Hold on a moment.”

 

                Del’s chubby, nut-brown face broke into a beaming smile. “Ellis! You made time for little old me… and Jhovani. Listen. I’m on the phone but Jhovani will get you started right away.”

                Ellis looked at Jhovani, who ruffled in his desk for something. “There’s just so much… I mean, Lala left on such short notice. That little bitch. Here. We’ve gotta work on the campaign. My assistant, Josue will arrive in a bit and help you pack these files. You’re gonna look over the designs and have them printed, then in the afternoon you guys are going to go around the county and put up lawn signs wherever you can.” He hesitated for a while. “Ellis the Attorney… You can borrow my car to go around the county.”

                She was thrilled and surprised at the same time, and started folding pamphlets and looking over campaign signs that Lala had made. She sent an order for designs out to a local print shop, then strolled out with the hand cart to pick them up.

 

-          - -

 

                The giant, grey cylinder tumbled through the deeps of space, suddenly illuminated by a brilliant star drawing too close. As the star lit the side of the tube, any ship passing by could see its name: _New Essex_ , printed across the side in big, bold letters. The giant, grey cylinder had been tumbling through space for the past twenty years, and would arrive at its destination in just one more year. It was a long time, but it was an improvement from the days of pure sublight travel.

 

The _New Essex_ could afford to move slowly, since it was big enough to contain entire cities. Its inhabitants could go about their daily lives, as opposed to cryo sleep, as in the days of pure sublight. You could live on a ship like that all your life and not notice that anything was different. People lived in domes all their lives on planets like Kara Tav II and Alphata VII, why would it be any different to live on an interstellar ark? Old Earth itself had created cities in space in ancient times, located at the Lagrangian points near the orbits of the Earth, Mars and other bodies in its own system. People had lived and died, for generation upon generation, on space stations such as Endymion I and II without ever seeing the open sky.

 

  Ellis looked out the window, her hand cart – a stolen shopping cart – loaded with cardboard Jhovany cutouts and Deermoon for County Council lawn signs. Not the regular window in a building, but the mile-thick bulletproof window of _New Essex_ itself, as elements only knew that disadvantaged neighborhoods would be on the edges of everything. Everything. The stars whizzed before her in a white blur, like fog. Fog was the only thing she remembered from her homeworld before she arrived here. Thankfully, _New Essex_ had perfect weather every day – no fog to be found.

 

Earlene Glass wasn’t the best mom, but she tried so hard that she signed up for a spot on _New Essex_ to get away from the cops on her homeworld. She was 28, and Ellis was 10 when they took the shuttle to the local transport hub. Ellis was kinda mad that she wouldn’t see her friends anymore, but she trusted Mom that it would be for the better.

 

And then came the stormy days. Ellis realized that the legal structure on _New Essex_ – New Essex county, which had the illusion of being a real place - allowed her to sign up for university just by taking a test, and that the school was residential. She broke free and didn’t give a damn. _Yes, Mom, coming to New Essex was the best decision ever._ Ellis thought that there wouldn’t be racism on a ship. I mean, come on. It was an artificial world. She majored in law, took her bar exam, then had to work at a small, ghetto law firm where conservative and ignorant people cracked affirmative action jokes when she was believed to be out of earshot.

 

Ellis became politicized in those days, as a 21 year old, freshly-minted attorney. She tried to make it with Terran guys first, then started hooking up with Del who was everything she thought Dokkar guys weren’t. Suave, sweet and caring, he was a social activist and ex-con who’d been kicked off his homeworld. Del and her broke off after a couple of months, but Ellis’s social justice streak stayed.

Soon she could be found at any protest – racial, economic, felons’ rights and immigrants’ rights. She dreamt of a better world, a real home – because Earlene, bless her soul, wasn’t able to provide that house on the hill that Ellis had seen in the subspace holocasts – the ones with Nouveau Family lords, with names like Von Rothenberg, rescuing ladies trapped by in high towers by mad scientists. Ellis soon forgot about the shining house on the hill, but remembered the dream of a better world that came with it.

 

Ellis returned to the Center and ran into a young, tall, dark cinnamon color Dokkar guy with spiky, jet black hair and deep set, long-lashed eyes. If he were Terran, Ellis would peg his heritage as possibly Southeast Asian.

“Hey. I’m Ellis.” She reached out a hand, which he shook firmly.

“I’m Josue Washington, sociology major at Essex University. Good to meet you, I’m Del and Jhovani’s assistant. I guess we’re gonna post up some of Deermoon’s signs?

“Yeah. I’ve got his car and we’re gonna drive around town a little bit.” Ellis printing out a list. “You ready to roll? There’s not a lot of time left.”

“Sure. I’m ready when you’re ready.”

“Del? Jhovani? We’re heading out.”

 

So this is how it felt to have your own car, though Ellis as she zipped along on Essex One, the main highway leading out of the city and out to the suburbs. With the window turned down, she felt the wind breezing through her short, curly hair. Wind… she’d almost never felt it here in New Essex. She relished the feeling.

“How are you doing there, Jo?”

Josue rode shotgun, sipping a blue cherry Tropic Phantasy soda in the half-liter bottle. It was Ellis’s favorite as a youth, too, though rumors abounded that it killed Dokkar sperm and was introduced by the racists to keep the alien population down. Whatever.

“Doin’ as good as I can be. Hey, we’re riding in Jhovani’s car. Usually his car is his sanctuary, and he often told me to get my own. But that shit’s expensive.”

“Tell me about it,” said Ellis. “You might have heard that I’m an attorney? Well, I ain’t rich. We’re all in the same boat here, so don’t get your hopes up.”

 

They turned onto an exit and drove into a leafy subdivision of rolling hills and small bungalows. It looked sort of familiar, but Ellis didn’t know where to place it. She pulled the list of people requesting lawn signs up on her phone – short list, she thought. I guess there wasn’t as big of a Dokkar community around here. Or a leftist community at all.

 

She drove up to the first house and it was a low ranch home with a carefully kept lawn of grass – _likely the new no-mow variety,_ thought Ellis. She knocked on the door nervously and a small, older Dokkar woman opened it.

“What do you want?” The suburbanite probably didn’t have many visitors.

“Um… Hi. I’m Ellis Glass from the Dokkar People’s Front. I understand that you put in a request for a Councilman Deermoon lawn sign, and some stickers for your car?”

“Yes….” She was cautious. “Come inside.”

Ellis went into the woman’s small living room, covered with wood paneling, and sat on a crusty couch.

“You understand,” went the older woman, “that tensions are high around here, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“My name is Jaydesia Moon. I’m Jayden Moon’s grandmother.”  
                “Oh…” Ellis was shocked and pained at the same time. “I’m so sorry. I understand why this might be a bad time, but we drove all the way from the Westchester City with these signs.”

“Did you wonder why Deermoon had you guys drive all the way here with these signs instead of just mailing them?”

“Because they’ll be confiscated as illegal activity if they’re not registered- and Deermoon never had the chance to get registered as a formal candidate?”

“What else? Okay. This community is a very conservative Terran place. I moved Jayden here because it was a good school district, and his mother had to work in the city. So I thought it would be a nice environment for him. He got along at school, race didn’t matter, but what I hadn’t thought of were the local vigilantes. You know what I mean?”

The way we do it around here is that those of us with more controversial views, and this is considered controversial around here if you don’t act assimilated and vote the straight Conservative ticket, you’ve got to put your signs up near the community hall. Over on Jones Avenue.”  

Ellis nodded, a bit uncertain. She’d been raised in the city and didn’t really know what suburban life was all about. “The… community hall?”

“Yeah. In the days of old Terra they had churches and mosques that the community gathered around. But ever since they abandoned religion they still had community halls – buildings that contain schools, clinics and other stuff.”

“Oh, like a traditional Dokkar mall.”

“Don’t say that. They are very strict about it being a non-profit thing. Terrans still don’t accept fee-for-service medical clinics, don’t you know. They’re very gung-ho about their health care and their government-issued ‘rights’ and ‘privileges’ and whatnot. Terrans… But I felt that it would be better for Jayden… all the space, no gangs like in Fishtown… at least until we got to Alpharetta.”

“I understand. So how do we start putting the signs up at the community hall, and is it like this in every … suburb?”

“Oh yes. They’re mostly conservative – liberals stay in the urban areas for some reason. Just find the community hall, and put however many signs you like. There’s a table inside where you can put your leaflets.”

“Thank you, Ms. Moon.”

“Don’t mention it. I have nothing but the strongest support for this cause. I have been waiting for a Dokkar county councilman all my life. Or the equivalent of that.” Judging by Jaydesia’s appearance, that was over 200 years. Dokkar people had a different lifespan than Terrans. But it wasn’t always a blessing – it could be a real curse.

 

Jo was curious to see what suburban Dokkar people had to say. “So, Ellis, how did it go?”

“I just had the most amazing experience. I just met Jayden Moon’s grandmother.”

“Damn.”

As they drove, Ellis spotted a sign. Nectar Road. _Elements, why did that sound so familiar?_ Then it struck her and Josue at about the same time. That was where Jayden Moon had been shot. She got an eerie feeling, then turned a corner to get away from the fateful location. She saw Jones Avenue around the corner, and the community hall – a sterile, blocky white building with the obvious columns of a security scanner right inside. Lynchburg Community Center was its name, written in cool, simple letters on the front.

It was so unlike the free-floating mercantile nature of a Dokkar mall, with its food vendors and spurious clinics and community groups all jumbled together. A Terran community hall was sterile. It was almost like a government agency, an Imperial outpost. They parked along the side of the road with an armful of lawn signs. The lawn had a bunch of signs on it already: “Animal Rights – Eat Only Vat Grown”, “End Taxation” and Ellis’s favorite – “Stop the Homosexual Agenda”. She didn’t get it, and she laughed, plugging a Deermoon sign in front of it.

“Hah, look at this one. ‘End Race Mixing.’ Seriously?” The racist sign looked homemade and Josue plugged a Deermoon sign in front of that one. What was up with this place? They deployed a few more signs, then walked into the empty community center and packed the table with Deermoon pamphlets. Then Ellis and Josue hightailed it out of there.

 

-          - -

Ellis sat in front of her holoscreen again, on the same tatty couch as before, drinking blue Tropic Phantasy soda with Henna and Dell. She’d been on her feet all day – having drafted Henna as well – working the voting stations, and she was glad to be able to rest today. Unfortunately, because of a few years ago, New Essex County still had manual voting. Sucks, but at least it gave them more face time with the public.

“And the final vote counts have come in for 9 out of 10 cities here in New Essex county. Only one, East Town – is still being counted. It looks like Agnes Von Kraft is ahead, with Ephraim Zhang in the second place and, our dark horse candidate Jhovani Deermoon in third place. While Von Kraft and Zhang are both seasoned aldermen and major players in the political scene, Deermoon is a new runner and we haven’t see much from him before. I’m Kenya Ibrahim for Newscast One. We will keep you updated when the final poll results are in.”

“Damn,” said Henna. “I hope he wins it. I don’t want to see that Nouveau Families old crone winning again. We’re living in a diverse world and this is going to matter for the next four years.”

“Relax,” said Del, taking a swig of the cerulean drink. “You’re preaching to the choir. You don’t have to try to prove yourself as this super supportive Terran friend. Our common nemesis is the Conservative party.”

After a few inane news broadcasts and a quick casserole shared between the three of them and a very tired Tyrese, the young activists gathered once more on the tatty couch, their eyes glued to the screen.

“We have the final poll results for East Town, which had to be recounted due to a mistake in the booth computers. It looks like the elections have taken a historic and unprecedented turn. Just looking at the votes in this district, Jhovani Deermoon is in the lead by a mere twenty votes. From what I can tell just looking at these results, it seems that Jhovani Deermoon is the councilman elect of District Nine. If the recount shows that this is accurate, it would be the first time we had a person of alien extraction as a county councilman. I’m Chastity Lopez for Newscast One. Back to you, Rhett.”

 

When Ellis got back to the Dokkar People’s Front office, she noticed that Jhovani wasn’t there. Then Deermoon came rushing through the entrance a few hours later, looking tired, but happy. His hair was kind of sloppy for his first day, but otherwise he was quite groomed.

“Moving to your new office?” Ellis knew that politics here on New Essex moved quickly, but it hadn’t hit her how quickly things would be going into motion.

“Yeah. Come on, grab a few boxes with and hop in the car with me. Josue’s watching my new office in City Hall.

“Sure…” She chugged the rest of her coffee, savoring the acrid, cinnamon-laced dregs, and rolled up her sleeves, hefting messy boxes packed with files and external hard drives. They tried to cram the last of them into Jhovani’s tiny back seat until they couldn’t see through the back window – _that’s gotta be some kind of violation, but no matter_ – and drove off on the expressway toward Carl Icahn Plaza.

-          - -

 

“By the power vested in me,” said Judge Markov, “I now pronounce you the fifth County Councilman of District Nine, the Westchester Community.”

Jhovani sweated under his stiff grey suit and the light of a thousand flash bulbs, stage lights, and other sources of radiation. _Couldn’t they at least have ordered a case of floating Lumiel lights for this 20-year trip? Now there’s real light without heat, not these fluorobulbs that just claim that quality._

The cameras turned to Ellis, who was nervous as shit. _This is it. This is it. Damn it, Eluveti, don’t fuck this up. This is, as the old Earth saying went, your fifteen minutes of fame. Don’t –_

“Eluveti Swanjetta Glass, repeat after me,” said the elderly Markov in her slightly creaking, yet very formal-sounding voice. “I swear to defend the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity in District Nine, and to uphold the values of the people of New Essex County, and of any form of government that may come after it within this legal realm for the next four years. If I break this oath, and betray the people that I serve, I will face twice the penalties of a common individual, and pay the price of a felony for  a misdemeanor, and exile for a felony. So mote it be.”

Ellis repeated the words, her heart beating like a chicken trapped in a tiny cage, nearly shitting herself with _oh shit, oh shit, this is the real deal._ Before she knew she was done, Markov spoke the final words: “By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you the fifth City Vice Councilman of District Nine, the Westchester Community.” And it was over. Little Ellis, who never got anything right, became Vice Councilman Glass.

-          - -

 

                Jhovani and Ellis grew into these roles. Enthusiastic young people grew into a political force when they had the space to fill, like plastic dinosaurs: just add water, and they swelled to a dozen times their size. By the second week, the Dokkar duo, along with the other people working in the Dokkar People’s Front office, had transformed the councilman’s office into a radical hideout. Old posters were everywhere, with Ellis’s favorite slogan – by any means necessary – and ‘Justice for Jayden’ broadsides festooned the dingy walls.

 

                But neither one was able to figure out how to get Johansson back in jail. Brett Johansson still walked free – but he walked in fear. His name had been sullied enough that he probably couldn’t get a job and possibly faced opprobrium wherever he went. Ellis kind of felt bad for the man – I mean, he was a cold blooded racist, but he had a wife. Kids.  You can’t pick who your parents are. What was happening to Johansson’s kids at school? What would happen when they got to the colonies on Alpharetta – Alphata 3? Ellis put that out of her mind and continued to answer emails.

 

                Ellis wondered when Lala was coming back, because this was getting a little overwhelming for her. Only Lamar Lala could do something like this and stay calm the rest of the time. There were so many angry people out there, so many weird questions. It would’ve been that way for any elected official, really.

                “Say, Jhovani? I know you’re busy.”

                “Hmm? I’ve got a minute. What’s up?”

                “Have you heard from Lamar Lala at all? Or do you want me to find him somewhere? We really need a Lala for this.”

                “You’ve been sworn in, so you have to be the public face of this. Lala says he’s gonna be gone for another two weeks. He has to wait for his assignment to be over or else they won’t pay him. But once he’s done, he’s gonna be back.” Jhovani seemed to have far more energy after his election, which was normal – but he also seemed to have way more time.

 

                “How’s Deva Rae taking this? You’re away from home a lot, and she’s been working on her career quite a bit as well.”

                “Deva’s all right. But we haven’t been seeing each other for the past couple of months. She told me that she didn’t know if our relationship could last, you know? She didn’t know if it was going in the right direction.”

                Or, though Ellis, she didn’t know if she should stick with the effete Jhovani or that other guy she’d been seeing. His name was Brayden or Brandon or something like that. Some radical bordering on terrorist; Deva was 90% of the way down the anarchist rabbit hole when she’d run into her last.

 

                “Yeah, I don’t know Deva very well but she seems to be a little too _grass roots_ , a little too hardcore, you know what I mean? Nice girl, but her politics could be a bit questionable.”

                “Yeah, definitely. I never got deep into what she was into. I wasn’t too sure what this stuff was that she was into but it looked like she was planning something behind my back. Whatever, it’s her choice.”

                “Probably some radical demonstration or even something as innocent as leafleting. Who knows, you know?”

 

                Ellis continued with her work and an email popped up on her screen. _One new message._ She ignored it for a while, then opened it on a total whim.

                “To the team of Jhovani Darkmoon.

 

                The unfortunate case of Jayden Moon is now a dark mark on our history. Racism and prejudice are things that we must fight every day. However, local terrorists are using the one-month anniversary of his death as an excuse to riot and destroy property. Groups like the Red Rebels and National Freedom are planning to strike at Koch Brothers Square at under cover of darkness. They are armed and dangerous, and can cause massive amounts of destruction if unchecked.

 

                Many of the youth planning this attack do not trust law enforcement because they view the police as racist or classist. Many of the youth are also of Dokkar descent. We need to ask for your cooperation in this manner because we cannot publicly act against this issue without the approval of an agent in the councilman’s office. As you may know, this is a delicate situation that could have political ramifications in a few months, when we arrive on Alphata Three. 

                We would like to discuss this matter with you further, as well as a possible reward, as is customary, for your district’s well being. Please reply 

Thank you,

                Office of Jorge Jackson, Esq.

                _Why did that name sound so familiar?_ There weren’t that many attorneys on the _New Essex_ , but the ones that were there were pretty good. The local bar exam was set to such a high level, because they didn’t want ship graduates, without internship experience or anything like that, to have a lot of book knowledge and very little practical wisdom. He was offering them something that they desperately needed, and violence was always a major concern here in East Town. She didn’t know him, but he sounded pretty legit.

                She replied.

                Dear Jorge Jackson,

                When would be a good time and place for you? I am also an attorney. Jhovani is a busy man, so I may have to go alone. Your offer definitely sounds interesting because our district is always strapped for cash. Contact me soon.

                Eluveti S. Glass.

                The reply came in a span of minutes. They would meet after work. Ellis thought about what she could do with all those extra resources that he seemed to have, for the district and for her community. Jhovani came back from a series of meetings, and she passed him the stack of schedules for tomorrow, as well as the receipts for things that were ordered for the office and for the local Dokkar malls.

                “Hey, Jhovani? “

                “Not now. I just came back from meeting with all these people and it’s so overwhelming. Here. Josue, go get a bottle of soda for the office. I’m so sorry Ellis, I’m probably going to go home and pass out right after work.”

                “It’s cool. Somebody made an offer to control domestic terrorists and anarchists in exchange for helping out our district.”

                “Is that so? Those anarchists and rioters give our culture a bad reputation anyway. We need all the financial help we can get. Go for it. Use your judgment – or use mine. I don’t know who this guy is but he’s making our lives easier. I’m sure this will turn out for the best.” 

 

                Ellis trusted Jhovani’s judgment. She’d really like to get Lala’s but he was totally incommunicado. At the end of the day, Ellis headed off to the fancy Northwest Quadrant of the district to meet with this random stranger. As she stepped off the bus, she noticed the _Dew Drop Inn_ at the corner, between a dollar store and a bar. She grabbed her phone to check some texts.

                “Hey, I’m at the first booth on the right hand side. You see it?” Ellis sat down. Jackson was a middle aged, nut-brown Terran man in a grey suit – she noticed that it didn’t fit too well, but that was the case with so many clothes that had been stored on the ship for 20 years.

                “Hi, it’s good to finally meet you, Jorge. Let’s talk about this.”

                “Well,” – he said, sipping his coffee and passing one to her. “Hey, coffee’s on me. These terrorists, you don’t know much about the situation with the anarchists, do you? No, of course you wouldn’t. You’d have to be in law enforcement.”

                “I used to be an attorney, just like you. Were you… a cop before?”

                “Yes, I was a cop for many years in District Nine and I’ve been to many of their meetings. I’ve since changed my tune to criminal prosecution. I’m getting a little too old to chase thugs.”

                “Yeah, I hear ya. Do you… have any proof for all of this or are you just bullshitting me? I mean, you could be anyoneoff the street.”

                Jackson swirled his coffee in his cup and pulled out his business card. Johnson, Jackson and Associates. She immediately knew the company – it was one of the biggest firms in New Essex. She’d seen them when she interviewed there but unfortunately, she hadn’t made the cut.

                “Phil Johnson, Jorge Jackson and associates. Sound familiar? If you were a young attorney, you’ve read JJA cases at law school and heard them mentioned many times.” Law firms on New Essex were like accounting firms on old Earth – big, and given to publicizing themselves everywhere from law textbooks to TV show mentions. “If you want, I could pull out my old badge – and you know that cops are sworn to honor.”

                Ellis was a bit torn between her youthful belief that cops were all good, and the discrimination that Dokkar guys she knew faced from them. But she’d never experienced police harassment personally.

“So what’s the plan? You just need Deermoon’s signature – and what are these benefits you’re talking about?”  
                “Just his signature, and we can go ahead and implement the plan. The benefits are manifold. I will donate two million credits to the local schools and also for youth career programs. Moreover, the local police department will renew its commitment to diversity and actively seek to recruit minority youth – not just Dokkar, but also Lumiel and Denebian kids. What do you say?”

                Ellis whistled. “That’s a very generous offer. When do I get his signature?”

                “Here.” He passed Ellis a form. “All you have to do is scan this form and send it back to me, and your check will be in the mail. You’ll have nothing to worry about from those terrorists. I guarantee it.” Ellis finished her coffee and they walked toward the door.

                “Say, Jorge, may I ask if we’ve met somewhere before? We’re both lawyers. The opportunities for our paths to cross are infinite, here in New Essex. How many lawyers are on this world, anyway?”

                “Nah, I don’t think so.” They parted ways and Ellis hopped on a crowded bus, headed back to her apartment.

-          - -

                Ellis sat on her couch with Henna, watching the evening news over a dinner of Arabic-style chicken and rice. The delicious flavors of garlic and onion wafted across the room, attracting Tyrese to squeeze his skinny butt next to the girls on the couch.

                “Mmm… I love chicken and rice. Got any left for me?”

                “Yeah, there’s a little left in the kitchen. Go get it if you want.”

                “Hey, what’s on the news?”

                “Tonight, after an earlier incident, riots have been shaking Koch Brothers Square. Police were able to stop the first wave of rioters but they spent the past couple of hours trying to wipe the area of other sources of disruption. Here is some footage taken from the incident.”

Protestors in balaclavas and black clothes stood in a solid, circular mass in the middle of the square at midnight as police descended like raptors for the kill. They'd been prepared for some noise, but there were way more pigs than they'd expected. It was like facing a herd of wild boar, ready to charge. As the two groups collided, black against blue, it was like Koch Square became Fallujah circa 2009 AT.

                    Fists, pepper spray and baseball bats flew as cops lassoed groups of screaming protestors in what were basically giant zip ties, effectively cuffing them a dozen at a time, and shoving them into strange blue-and-white _police busses_ of some sort. Ellis thought she saw some familiar faces. Several shots ran out against the dead of night, and

                    "Over a hundred people have been arrested during the protests. The local Koch high school has been shut down, with its students sealed inside until conditions become safe. A higher than average number of students were absent today for unknown reasons."

                    _You stupid bitch, they're in jail._ Ellis didn't want to watch, but it was like a train wreck, and she couldn't look away. She slammed back her soda like a college student chugging beer.

                    "Investigators have turned up an extensive TwitNet network in which these organizations had  operated, unchecked, for years. The main instigators, Black Banner and Red Front, have been connected respectively to instigators Keyshawn Sato and Deva Rae Jameson. Sato is still on the loose, but Jameson's body has been positively identified through prior arrest records."      

                    Ellis remembered meeting Deva Rae some time ago, back when Jameson and Jhovani were an item. There was something wrong with that chick, she was a little too intense for this comparatively tiny spaceship. Deva was always wearing some depiction of a radical, such as Emma Goldman or Che Guevara, on her shirt. She was always on the go, always going to some protest or action. While Ellis went to her share of protests, Deva was at every one of them.

                    _Damn. She's gone forever_. Ellis struggled to comprehend the finality of that concept. She was pretty young, and had remembered when Henna's mom died. But nobody that she'd ever really known. Even though she hadn't known Deva too well, it was like a black pit had opened up inside her, and was beginning to suck her apart in bits and pieces from the inside out. Ellis thought about her meeting with Jackson. Her enthusiasm to get Jhovani's signature, knowing how much it would help the community. She just had to keep going on instinct, didn't she, without thinking about the consequences? How would she have known that Deva was gonna be there, anyway? What if she had been at that protest?

                    Jackson had twisted the words. Terrorists. Rioters. _Was I really that dumb to think that he was looking out for our community?_ In Jackson's mind, Ellis herself was probably a terrorist for handing out flyers at the Justice for Jayden protests. It's too easy to think of it as free speech when you're doing it, and rioting when someone else is. So Jameson was little too hardcore because she saw the government as a criminal gang? Ellis remembered something about Jameson's mom having been kicked off their homeworld for organizing strikes at a factory. What if Ellis had been born a Terran person who'd been raised to view someone who dressed and looked like Jayden as a thug?

                    Henna turned to Ellis, finishing her last spoonful of rice and putting down the plastic bowl. "That Deva Rae was really something. It kinda sucks that she's gone."

                    "Yeah, you're telling me." At least she went out fighting.

                    - - -

                    The spinning, grey cylinder known as _New Essex_ tumbled through the deeps of space, then began its long deceleration as it entered the space around the Alphata system. The end of its long journey was a silvery sphere that orbited twin suns - one small, white dwarf, one M-class star much like old Terra's own. Alphata 3, called Alpharetta after some ancient and forgotten Terran, or possibly Martian settlement, was a relatively new world.

                    _The air must be very thin there_ , thought Del as he looked out from the thick, bulletproof pane at the edge of East Town. He sipped some coffee as the solar crescent rose on Alphata, looming before him like a bowling ball filling half the sky. He saw the greyish surface, decorated with a faint mottling of green and brown, with ancient domes scattered throughout - relics from before the planet was terraformed. The planet got closer and closer, until it filled the entire space of the great window that was twice the height of a man and twenty times the breadth.

                     Del could almost smell the cold, dry air there, redolent of sand and scrub. Like the mountains and high plateau on Neville, his homeworld. The planet stopped getting closer, and just started drifting. The *New Essex* was now in orbit. They would be out of here soon. He realized what the mysterious perfume was in that thin, icy atmosphere that he imagined. It was the scent of freedom.

          Ellis woke up, hung over, in the narrow bed that she shared with boxes of plasticine trinkets for Henna's online store. It could've been double vision, but she swears that there weren't as many boxes when she passed out last night. She saw a bunch of liquor bottles and a used syringe scattered across the floor, and noticed she couldn't remember consuming any of those substancse. Whatever. She heard knocking.

"Hey," said Hennessey, peering in, her bleached hair looking bright yellow in the half-light. "Just checking to make sure you get up for the shuttle launch."

* _The shuttle launch?_ * Ellis suddenly remembered. The shuttle launch! "How long is it before we have to be there?"

  "Like 3 hours?"

  Damn. Ellis hadn't done any packing, and it would take them a half hour to get there, another half hour to squeeze onto one of the presumably overcrowded shuttles to the planetary surface. Ellis grabbed a duffel bag and started squeezing her clothes into it.

"Yo Ellis?" Henna popped in again. "I packed the rest of your stuff with mine and Ty's while you were asleep. All you gotta do is get your clothes and your computer things."

"Thank you, thank you!" Ellis could kiss that woman. She continued shoving clothes and bedding into the duffel bag and suitcase, then packed her laptop, tablet and a change of clothes into her backpack. Knowing what she did about settlement life, she wouldn't be able to find her shit until much later. 

She finished off by slapping multiple " _Eluveti S. Glass_ " stickers on her luggage, along with her phone number and netmail addresses. Ellis went to the bathroom for a while, then went into the kitchen. She saw that the fridge was pretty much empty, except for a bunch of sandwiches that Tyrese probably got from his job's last-day party. Catching a glimpse of Tyrese and Henna, Ellis moves toward them in the living room

  "Henna, Ty, what's up? What exactly is going on with the shuttle launches, and are we supposed to be going on the same one?" Ellis planned to settle in Newtown. She wanted dibs on the prime real estate there so that she'd be able to sell high and retire well.    

 

**  *

                Del, Henna and Tyrese squeezed through the carpeted, stale-smelling aisle of the shuttle until they made it to their row. Ellis was shoving her carryon bag into the tiny overhead compartment; the rest of their boxes were already en route to Newton in a special cargo shuttle.

 

                “Damn, it seems like everyone’s going to Newtown. This shuttle’s so packed, it’s crazy.” Del wiped sweat away from his forehead as he shoved his carryons into the overhead and under his seat. He squeezed his tall, lanky body into the tiny seat next to Henna in the overcrowded row.

 

                “Tell me about it. But if we took any other shuttle, it would be a real problem getting to any of those other settlements until we got a car or whatever. And then there’ll be motel charges because our house is on Newtown.” Ellis kept the others in check with a dose of cool rationality as she closed her eyes and mentally drifted into space.

 

                “Please fasten your seatbelts and stay in your seats as we lift off.” The electronic voice over the speakers was robotic and relaxed, like most of them. Their seats were in the middle of the shuttle, but Del could see the arc of Alphata 3, rising like a mottled moon over the bottom rim of the window. He could almost smell the fresh air of a planet, feel actual dirt beneath his feet for the first time. Freedom, and the start of a true new beginning. If stepping onto _New Essex_ had been refreshing for his parents, compared to the closed existence of  life on the old planets, stepping out of the ship and onto a  brand new world was going to be like that times a thousand.

-          - -

**  *

                Del, Henna and Tyrese squeezed through the carpeted, stale-smelling aisle of the shuttle until they made it to their row. Ellis was shoving her carryon bag into the tiny overhead compartment; the rest of their boxes were already en route to Newton in a special cargo shuttle.

 

                “Damn, it seems like everyone’s going to Newtown. This shuttle’s so packed, it’s crazy.” Del wiped sweat away from his forehead as he shoved his carryons into the overhead and under his seat. He squeezed his tall, lanky body into the tiny seat next to Henna in the overcrowded row.

 

                “Tell me about it. But if we took any other shuttle, it would be a real problem getting to any of those other settlements until we got a car or whatever. And then there’ll be motel charges because our house is on Newtown.” Ellis kept the others in check with a dose of cool rationality as she closed her eyes and mentally drifted into space.

 

                “Please fasten your seatbelts and stay in your seats as we lift off.” The electronic voice over the speakers was robotic and relaxed, like most of them. Their seats were in the middle of the shuttle, but Del could see the arc of Alphata 3, rising like a mottled moon over the bottom rim of the window. He could almost smell the fresh air of a planet, feel actual dirt beneath his feet for the first time. Freedom, and the start of a true new beginning. If stepping onto _New Essex_ had been refreshing for his parents, compared to the closed existence of  life on the old planets, stepping out of the ship and onto a  brand new world was going to be like that times a thousand.

\- - - 

 

Del, Henna and Tyrese squeezed through the carpeted, stale-smelling aisle of the shuttle until they made it to their row. Ellis was shoving her carryon bag into the tiny overhead compartment; the rest of their boxes were already en route to Newton in a special cargo shuttle.

 

                “Damn, it seems like everyone’s going to Newtown. This shuttle’s so packed, it’s crazy.” Del wiped sweat away from his forehead as he shoved his carryons into the overhead and under his seat. He squeezed his tall, lanky body into the tiny seat next to Henna in the overcrowded row.

 

                “Tell me about it. But if we took any other shuttle, it would be a real problem getting to any of those other settlements until we got a car or whatever. And then there’ll be motel charges because our house is on Newtown.” Ellis kept the others in check with a dose of cool rationality as she closed her eyes and mentally drifted into space.

 

                “Please fasten your seatbelts and stay in your seats as we lift off.” The electronic voice over the speakers was robotic and relaxed, like most of them. Their seats were in the middle of the shuttle, but Del could see the arc of Alphata 3, rising like a mottled moon over the bottom rim of the window. He could almost smell the fresh air of a planet, feel actual dirt beneath his feet for the first time. Freedom, and the start of a true new beginning. If stepping onto _New Essex_ had been refreshing for his parents, compared to the closed existence of  life on the old planets, stepping out of the ship and onto a  brand new world was going to be like that times a thousand.

-          - -

 

 

                    The first breath of outside air was cold, dry and bracingly devoid of oxygen. The twin suns shone overhead like scalding, halogen spotlights in comparison to New Essex's pseudosol, and the sky was a little too dark blue in contrast. Ellis took in the view of the first planet she'd seen in a little over 20 years. Her previous homeworld had been damp and grey, the new one sharp, flat and bright, with a chiaroscuro vibe.

 

                    All around her, the settlement of Newtown fanned out like a low Terran suburb. It was nothing like the high towers of New Essex's city center, even though they were in the middle of town. Somewhere in the distance, a bus whirred and came to life, the acrid scent of diesel fuel, like the breath of a creator god enlivening this forbidding landscape. Cars weren't being shipped until everyone got onto the surface.

 "So where's our new place, Ellis?" Henna popped up, seemingly out of nowhere. Ellis hadn't even noticed that she was there.

"Hell, I'm not even sure. I think Tyrese went off to get our apartment assignment. I remember putting in a request for one in the city center so we don't have to drive everywhere. At least until we can find a better situation, you know?"

"Yeah, I hear ya. Settler life is bound to be boring enough without like, staying in an isolated part of town. Where's your mom? My family's in the suburban area. I think it's called New Village."

"My mom's alllll the way on the other side of the planet. Thank the elements, I had enough of her already."

"Your family's really that bad, huh?" Henna frowned a bit. "Don't worry. You'll really get along with Brandy and Remy. They weren't able to visit that much when we were on the ship because they were working on the bridge."

"Cool. Yeah, we should totally hang out, get some drinks together and stuff." Ellis was pleasantly surprised that Henna's siblings were actual officers. The bridge crews of long-travel starships were usually the smartest guys on the ship, and would traditionally take a place in the beginnings of planetary government as well as general operations in the new settlement - wherever it was. No judgment on Hennessey, but usually regular people didn't know anyone running the show. Even elected officials on New Essex didn't even have that much power. And Ellis needed some sort of job planetside.

Tyrese came back with a set of keys and a large computer pad in hand. "Hey. Just got the coordinates. We really got lucky in terms of this apartment stuff. It's like 2 blocks from here."

"Sweet!" Ellis was thrilled. Finally, after a hectic day of packing and being crammed in the tin can-like shuttle, they were going to get some rest in their own apartment. Their permanent space on a permanent world.

* * *

“More than 90 percent of former _New Essex_ residents have now found permanent places to live here on Alpharetta. However, not all of them have settled into their previous careers. Newscast One is doing a special report on Essaxons who have chosen, instead, to work in Alpharetta’s native oil industry.”

The screen cut to an image of an oil field, populated by workers. One of the employees came up to the reporter and lifted up her helmet, revealing a fresh-faced teen, her cinnamon-tone face streaked with the faintest bit of oil and Alphata dust. She shook hands with the reporter.

“Hi, I’m Brooklyn O’Neal for Newscast One. May I ask what brings you to the Kianu oil fields?” O’Neal’s dust-brown hair was battered about by the high desert wind.

“I’m Lyric Rayne Dubois, and all my life I’ve been stuck… working in offices back on _New Essex._ All my life I was never outside, you know? And as soon as I got here it was like, what’s the most outdoor job I could get?” She laughed, and Brooklyn laughed back. They knew what was up and being trapped indoors all your life could send you screaming to avoid the indoor air as much as you could.

Lyric continued. She didn’t want to push, but she couldn’t stay quiet anymore either. “Plus, it’s way more money than what I was doing. Alphata 3 – the place we call Alpharetta – is kinda known for the oil thing. It’s been here for so long. And we’re so new. I feel that rather than squeezing this world to fit our needs, we should familiarize ourselves with the way of life here, and follow this way of life rather than whatever we had on our homeworlds. We came here – well, my parents decided to come here – for a reason. Otherwise we could’ve stayed wherever we were.”

Brooklyn nodded a bit hesitantly. _Those were fighting words,_ she thought. Assimilate or stay where you are? That was the refrain of xenophobes and know-nothings throughout the galaxy. She thought about some of her ancestors, who’d left the lunar colonies for the first interstellar settlements, and having to shoehorn themselves into their way of thinking. It wasn’t the language barrier, which was minimal. It just wasn’t easy – adapting to a world with Nouveau Families setting themselves up as this aristocratic caste. And that was the least of it.

Brooklyn bit her tongue. “So Lyric, how many Essaxons do you think work for local energy companies around here, or the security services, like Greywater, that surround them?”

“I would say a lot, a few thousand. Most people are interested in staying with the jobs that they had on the ship, but there’s a few of us who are interested in breaking the mold and going into the unknown.” Lyric pushed a strand of coffee-brown hair behind one long, elfin ear, her smile revealing sharp Dokkar canine teeth and a faintly bluish inner lip.

“Thank you, Miss DuBois, for this fascinating look into the world of oil.” Brooklyn turned back to the camera. “Here in Kianu Oil Field, and many others, people are discovering the heart of Alpharettan culture and its lifeblood. This is truly an amazing phenomenon. Reporting live from the Kianu Desert, this is Brooklyn O’Neal for Newscast One. Back to you, Rhett.”

Ellis and Henna sat on the threadbare couch – the same one they had back on _New Essex_. It was a pleasant surprise to have the old furniture back, though it took a couple of weeks to get heavy items off the ship and to the proper owners before _New Essex_ had to go pick up more people. The furniture had come with the ship, and was replaced for each batch of passengers, but to Ellis and the other kids who grew up there, it was just ‘the old furniture’.

Henna sipped a blue Tropic Phantasy and put her chubby feet on the coffee table. “Life is so normal here. Too normal. Except that I’m looking for work, you know? This is it. I mean, Ellis, _this is it._ This is the endgame, this is what we’ve all been waiting for. We’ve got to _make this happen._ ”

Ellis had never seen Henna get so motivated before. But this was a different world. “I had a talk with Del the other day and it seems that Lamar Lala’s back. So I’m in the same boat as you are.”

“Shit, Lala? His ass vanished off the face of the ship. Where was he?”

“He was selling his body to science in the evenings and working 24/7 at some computer programming shop, trying to make ends meet. His girlfriend left him and stuck him with some child support bullshit, so he couldn’t keep working at a nonprofit.”

“And now he just bounces on in when we arrive on the planet. Some guy.”

“No, it’s not even that. There’s some provision in local Alphatan law – not our Alpharettan law from _New Essex_ – that says you can’t get automatic child support if you have a significant amount of income and your spouse is indigent. And, judging by the court’s decision, she made too much to qualify.”

“Did she try to sue?”

“Nah, she’d never win. Lala didn’t even know that the baby was his until the kid was born.” Ellis was suddenly quiet. Lala was back. Jhovany and Lala were a team again. Now Ellis could go off and do Ellis things. She could _self-actualize_ , as they used to say in the Terran system.                  

“Have you … thought of what you wanted to do, Henna? I mean, you’re an accountant by training but you can do that stuff anywhere.” Henna put her bottle of soda down and her ears perked up.

“No, but that oil field stuff sounds really cool. Usually in the older colonies there aren’t any of these fields near cities but here, they’re all around us. It’s like a bus ride away, you don’t even need a car or whatever.”

“I was thinking the same thing. I’m supposed to be an attorney, but whatever.” Ellis’s heart was with Del’s program, but she needed a day job. And she wanted to learn more about this place.

 

Del sat in front of a computer, thinking. The bright afternoon rays of Alpha 1 and 2 shone through the window like light reflecting off a mirror. It was almost painful. As was the sound of Jhovani Darkmoon sitting next to him, blabbing away inanely into the phone while Lala typed frantically. Lala’s pale skin had shown no improvement from the harsh rays of this planet – he rarely saw sunlight. But he was definitely bathed in the glow of his passion, free from the legal prison he’d inhabited.

“Hey.” A dusty figure in casual khakis and a light helmet barged into the office at City Hall.

“Ellis! How’s your, um, job?” He was a bit startled at her career move.

“Exhilarating. Like nothing I’d ever experienced.”

“I see.” He was a bit puzzled. “You’ve got a real worm’s eye view out there on the rig, don’t you? Must be a bit of a tumble from the county courts.”          

“Sure. They need all the help they need and the majority of people out there are newbs anyway. People out there are way nicer than they used to be. I’m not even doing anything really hard, just standing there and operating robots. It’s mostly inexperienced girls out there who used to push paper and flip burgers. I hang out with Henna and get paid way better than anything else. How’s everything here?”

  

"Speaking of which," Del stopped typing for a while and looked up. "We've been getting a lot of oil workers, private security employees and other local Alphatans lately. A lot of them are Dokkar or, uh, mixed, but a lot of them are regular Terran descent people. And they're coming to us as the People's Front. There's a bit of tension between them and the Essaxon settlers. The way they think is different."

                "Yeah, the locals are all of a piece socially, regardless of race. The only real distinction is between them and the settlers. I wouldn't call it tension from my perspective. What have they been looking for here?" 

                "I would certainly call it tension. Some locals from Kianu, New Maple and other major field areas have been getting into fights for hanging out with settler girls. Mostly Dokkar guys, Terran girls.

                It's not even just that. They're not familiar with the new political systems, the new laws. Local families have been sending their kids to the schools, the kids talk too much you know? The parents are getting harassed for spanking kids, giving them wine, the gun culture, just local traditions. The only concession they've been able to win is the child support thing, but otherwise their lifestyle's been almost criminalized by the settler system. Sounds all too familiar."

                "And these are Terran people, too, encountering these issues."

                "They have it just as bad. And their tax rate is now Settler level, and there's all these union, minimum wage things that are so unfamiliar to them. They feel like any other minority, and that's why they're looking to us for representation."

                "The local form of government had been corporate rule - not really rule, but like a patchwork of companies. Von Heisenberg Company. Von Torre Partnership. People do just fine, they never consented to be ruled by us."

                "Their parent companies were the ones who'd invited us to come and develop the rest of the planet, but we've had some corporate visitors as well - unofficial of course, but a few Von Heisenberg members have been having issues."

                Ellis sat down and started her work. New, old, it didn't matter. All places were the same. She got a sinking feeling. The phone rang.

                "Hello, this is Darkmoon's office. Ellis speaking."               

                "My name is Nia Blue, and I'd like to report a ... bribery incident?"

                "What's up?"

                "My son, Rochay, has been rebellious. Well, he's 13." Ellis went *mmm-hmm* in sympathy. "Recently he started calling CPS on me on some bad advice from settler kids. And you know, we're a local family, sometimes I hit him with a switch when he misbehaves and he gets to leave school to work some days. They've got him in some orphan holding center, and Rochay's freaking out. But they're trying to squeeze me for every penny I've got."

                Ellis's head started to hurt. This was too much like her homeworld, the place she was born. They made so many laws that you were bound to break at least one, and if you didn't know the right people, you had to pay. Dokkars were always on the wrong side. Here, it was locals who were always on the wrong side.

                "Let me have the name and office of the agent. I'll see what we can do." Ellis's voice softened. "Hey, don't lose hope. I know it's hard, and you were just doing the right thing. Kids need space, discipline, the right to stretch out and be who they are. Not caged birds, like in this dominant Settler paradigm. I agree with you a hundred percent. I was also raised by the belt, and my Dokkar mom got hell for it. *This is our fight, too.*"

                "You're the first person in this new world who understands. I hope you are able to do something."

                "I hope so, too."

* * *

                Drilling work was more exhausting than usual after staying up for weeks with Lala, tackling legal issues for local families and bailing kids out of youth holding centers. Ellis rolled a few oil barrels onto a truck headed for the distribution plant. Then she punched out and took a swig of water.

                She heard the low whine of a siren in the distance.

                "Sandstorm's coming," said a man with a settler accent. "Better find shelter." He jumped inside a van that was packed with people. No room for Ellis of course - just her luck for staying at work late. She knew that there was some sort of cave nearby, and she walked out into the desert toward that place. There was a wall of rock, rather unstable but not too vulnerable from just a sandstorm, with a crevasse in it.

                Ellis ducked her upper body inside just as soon as the wall of sand hit. The rushing wall of particles knocked her off her feet, and she grabbed onto the cave wall, dragging herself into the crevasse completely.

                She got up and looked around,

observing the smallness and cragginess of her refuge. If this sandstorm went on for long, she’d have to sleep sitting up. Ellis leaned back against one of the back walls and closed her eyes for a while. She almost had a feeling like the wall was slowly sinking as she drifted away into sleep.

                Sleep was a mishmash of shapes, colors and bright lights with no coherent program. Ellis felt like she was being sucked through a tunnel. Like the cave had gotten infinitely longer, and she was moving through it. Each segment of the cave, like a piece of a giant earthworm, was sealed by a locked door on each end. She remembers solving some sort of Sudoku-like puzzle to get through one of them, and squeezing a sort of putty in another. _What, am I Alice now? Where’s that damn rabbit?_

                Ellis opened her eyes and saw a squeeze bottle in front of her, labeled ‘Drink Me’. She laughed and drank it. It contained a sort of sweet, creamy pudding. _Not bad._ She looked in front of her and saw that the inside of the crevasse was now a labyrinth. Except instead of corn, or privet hedges, it was made up of red ocher colored crevasse material a little bit taller than she was. She looked behind her and just saw a wall. So she walked forward, having no other choice but to get this task done before moving on to, hopefully, greener pastures.

                The labyrinth wasn’t a maze. It didn’t have anything to solve, except for the endless walking that made Ellis a little bit bored, instead of hypnotized – as was a labyrinth’s usual intent. She kept walking, picking up her pace. Maybe she’ll find a piece of cheese, maybe she’ll find a trap. Either way, she wanted to find out sooner rather than later. She got to what was, presumably, the center, and saw a wooden door in the middle of the labyrinth wall. There wasn’t any visible lock, so she turned the knob.

                Inside, she saw the familiar layout of Carl Icahn square, with the Westchester City courthouse to one side, the high school to the other, and the bland pseudosol of _New Essex_ shining high in a pale-blue, pixilated sky. There were no cars in the street. Nobody was in the square. Ellis walked in and looked around.

               “Hello? Is anyone here?” Her voice echoed in the chamber, indicating that this was some sort of hologram in a small, metal room.

                A small row of distant figures walked across the far edge of the square and the hair on the back of Ellis’s neck rose before she could see that they were cops. But they weren’t focused on her. They were focused on a small, ragtag band of people on the other side of the square, walking toward the line of cops. One of them was familiar – Deva Rae! How did she get here? Ellis knew not to ask questions.

                As the police came closer, she saw a distinct non-police figure coming close behind them. An oily looking man in a brown suit, his hands in his pockets like nothing was going on. She walked to the side, far enough behind the row of approaching cops that she hoped she could pass unnoticed. Ellis felt at her side and noticed that she had a gun. As soon as the police spotted her, she aimed, fired, and shot Jackson. The bullet made a satisfying crunch in his thick, wide skull, spraying the few meters around him with blood, like a nice fireworks display.

                Then she found herself pinned down and handcuffed by burly men, dragged along the sidewalk and repeatedly beaten with a nightstick until the world around her again faded to red-black.

                When she rose again, opening her bruised eyes, she saw that the cops had faded away. The square was empty except for two figures, both shot in the head. Deva Rae Jameson and Jorge Jackson. Fat and skinny, she thought. Fat and skinny went to bed, fat rolled over and skinny was dead. Except that they were both dead. And it was her fault – again. Except that _they were both dead_ , including the one that should’ve been dead. Ellis walked over and kneeled over Jackson, touching his blood, feeling his slimy neck for a pulse. She sniffed her finger, and smelled the same sweaty odor that Jackson had emanated in life. This was the real McCoy. She walked over to Deva Rae and _noticed that she also had been alive just a few minutes ago, and smelled the same as Darkmoon’s jacket._

                “Congratulations, Miss Glass.” A tall, androgynous looking woman, dressed in a white bodysuit, walked toward her. The woman’s hair was platinum, and cropped close to her head. Her skin shone, like polished ebony.

                “What the fuck is this?”

                “This is the real world, Eluveti.” Ellis stared at her with a mixture of puzzlement and hostility. “I am your guide, Maria von Britten. Before encountering this scenario, you had many fixed ideas about what is right and what is wrong. Jackson is the villain, and Jameson the hero.”

                Ellis was silent. Where was this weird bitch going with this shit? “So I’m wrong, and things went the right way before we started meddling with the flow of history, and now my grandkid won’t marry Jackson’s grandkid and become some savior of the universe? Is this some sort of game show or are you just fucking with me?” 

                “You are a fan of Terran history, from what I know. Do you know of a man named Hitler?”

                “Yes, he was a racist asshole. Dokkar people living in the Republic are a bit like the Jews.” Ellis noticed the woman’s round, Terran ears, despite her otherworldly  nature.

                “If you know Terran history, you know that Hitler’s rise and eventual defeat set off a chain of events that allowed the United States, at that time the strongest power on Terra, to create and defend a system that eventually enabled the first lunar and Lagrangian colonists – not Americans at first, but people in the Pacific Islands - to leave Terra and become a spacefaring race.

If Hitler had not come to power, it is a good bet that the Dokkar, Lumiel and Denebian civilizations would be the only major spacefaring races in the galaxy.”

“Wouldn’t that be awesome? None of you meddling Terrans to kick our asses.” Ellis was extra pissed off because everything that Maria said was correct.

                “I do not know if it would have been good for the galaxy in the long run. The more spacefaring races there are, the more chances at civilization’s survival. The more chances that the great race that populates this entire galaxy can cohere and move on to greater things.”

                “What the hell are you smoking? There’s no way you and I are the same race.”

                “Some once said the same thing about the Africans and the Europeans – two groups of people on Terra.”

                “Damn you.”

                “If you would like to learn more about the real world, I am always available.” Maria handed Ellis a card – a key card, she saw. “But if you would like to go back to sleep, the door is behind you.” A long tile in the square moved aside, revealing a glowing, rectangular manhole. Maria quickly vanished into it. Ellis looked behind her and saw that the wooden door she’d passed through before was visible again. _There’s nothing left for me out there. Fuck it, I’m going wherever._ Ellis walked toward the manhole.

                                               

               


	2. Chapter 2: Suzy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suzy Freedman is an asteroid miner, looking to break free of the galaxy.

4115 Anno Terrae.

Space, vast tracts of darkness and stars floated around Suzy Freedman as she maneuvered the semi-robotic drill toward a spot on the asteroid’s surface. The sun was a huge brown sphere, glowing faintly in the distance like a radioactive blimp. It was technically called Barnard’s Star, but all the miners on its surrounding cloud of asteroids called it Barney.

The drill locked in, gripping onto the rocky ground with talons. Suzy carefully lowered the drill bit into the ground, just nicking it a little bit. Then she grabbed onto the entire contraption and powered it on. The drill ate through dense, crunchy rock with the puff-pastry layers of schist and the crispiness of granite. A stray piece flew upward and almost hit the glassine mask of Suzy’s pressure suit. She held the yard-long machine, keeping it steady. The drill started winding down, having detected a change in texture. She sprayed the area with the drill’s duster, then unlatched it and moved it aside.

                _Nice._ There was shialite here; she’d just reached the top of the deposit. From the drill’s computer estimation, there was about 20 tons of the rare mineral underneath this pesky moon rock.

                “DeShawn, this is Suzy. There’s a lot of material here. When you’re done on the other side, come take a look. I think we’ll be able to take a bit of a break after this.”

Suzy sat down on an outcropping and stared up at Barney, its red giant glow setting over one edge of the open-pit quarry. At least it didn’t remind her of any other sun out there. Especially the too-bright sun of her previous planet, Lumiel. She flipped open her phone and gazed at some pictures.

Unlike most citizens of the Republic, she didn’t have too many of them. Her cousins on Deneb when they got drunk at a football game, a couple of years ago when she bothered to visit. She was the weird, skinny one with the ears and the short, dark hair, surrounded by robust Denebians with golden hair, golden skin, and the perfectly balanced head ridge. Pictures of cool-looking mineral deposits … yeah, that’s the stuff. Turquoise-colored crystals that changed color, golden metal, and a glittering of gold embedded as ore within another rock. _Shialite. What a wonderful mineral that can take so many different forms…_

Damn, fuck shialite. The material, used in starship navigation systems like quartz was once used in watches, was a means to an end. In her heart, Suzy just worked here to stay away from other people. Especially those drunk, sun-worshipping, slobbering Denebians on her mom’s side of the family. The picture on the phone changed once more. It was a sleek, slate-grey starship, highlighted bits showing where it still needed work before it was able to do its job. Suzy gazed at it like a religious devotee gazing at the image of a saint. She needed to escape on the _Hope_ , and hopefully this shialite haul would be enough for her to finally put those last parts in.

“Suzy, I’m coming right over. This better be good, ‘cuz I’m not finding anything substantial on this side. Hell, I could carry all the shialite I got today in a shopping cart.”

“Nice. See ya.”

  * **



The _Hope,_ a lean, steel-grey vessel, glistened in Barney’s relaxing, ruddy glow. It was too small to be called a starship, but too heavy-duty to be a fighter jet, a shuttle, or any of the other regular individual vessel types. _Hope_ ’s engines were the same kind you’d find on a lightspeed interstellar transport ship, with a few additions to push it just past the limit of the fastest commercial vessels.

Suzy plugged a pack of shialite magnets into its secondary power core, fusing the heavy, crystal-laden packet into the area with a blowtorch. The hull was heavy with enough of them to power a dozen of those interstellar transport ships. She needed it to go as fast as possible, and the technology to get the one-piece extruded engines that advanced wasn’t available. At least, not to her.

Maybe there would be some sort of government experiment going on in the Dokkar Republic, but they had enough of their own problems to deal with without some meddling Lumiel barging in and asking for their top secret plans. There weren’t any other large, state-sized organizations left in the galaxy anymore. Nor any corporations that were interested in anything beyond selling plasticine wares to a population anesthetized by Denebian football and Dokkar liquor.

 _It’s just down to you and me, Hope._ Hopefully, the shialite magnets would energize the engine enough to overcome its innate deficiencies. Despite her Lumiel education, Suzy couldn’t figure out how to make one on her own. _Just one more day, pay your respects to your work partners._

She sealed up the hatch, wiped her sweaty forehead and climbed down the ladder in her garage. She put her tools back in the closet, then walked to the small room in back where she lived to freshen up a bit.

Suzy sped over the bumpy ground on the large asteroid _Deva Rae,_ where most of the miners lived. It was an inert rock, no real potential, that was hollowed out and packed with settlements. Her motorbike floated over rocks and rubble, the semblance of a road that they had being marked out with paint and a half-assed attitude toward removing the bigger rocks from people’s way. She rode to a bit of a larger settlement.

The sign read: _Bridgeport._ Since it had neither a bridge nor a port, she recognized it as some possible obscure reference made by one of its founders. Most likely obscene. She pulled up by a bar called _Duff’s_ and walked into the small, grey trailer that contained the establishment.

“DeShawn! So glad to find you here. Sorry I’m late,” she said, looking around and seeing that the place was full of miners she knew.

“Hey, Suzy. I heard it’s DeShawn’s last day,” said a portly woman that she recognized as Tonya, a gleaner of powdery shialite and sometime bulk bundler of supplies for lazy minders.

“Hey DeShawn,” said Suzy, sitting at the bar next to the stout, brown-haired man. “Heard it’s your last day. Is it? Well,” she hesitated, “it’s also mine.”

“No surprise there dude. I’ve been planning my exit here for a long time, as have you, I’d always assumed.” He took another swig of the watery brew that passed for beer in the asteroid belt.

“Whatcha got planned for life on the old planet?”

“Not the old planet. Paterson IV’s where my cousin has property, and maybe he’ll hook me up with some nice babes.” He flashed a corny, ironic grin at her. “I don’t know if the radiation in this place has damaged my goods or not, but my biological clock’s ticking and I gotta get started.”

“Yeah, I hear ya on that.” Suzy was a confirmed bachelorette, mostly because of her spacefaring ambitions. With her Lumiel heritage, she wouldn’t be encountering infertility for a very long time.

“What are your plans? Spending time working on your ship, jetting through the galaxy?”

“You’ve got it. That ship’s gonna be my full time job from now on. You’ll send me pictures of the kids and I’ll send you pictures of the ship, all right?” She tried to return the ironic grin.

“You have a deal. Just don’t turn into one of those space captains who forgets about their previous lives and hooks up with babes from throughout the galaxy.”

“Or even outside the galaxy.”

“Aw man,” DeShawn rolled his eyes. “You go out there and the galactic barrier’s gonna zap you to bits. Or some alien’s gonna eat you. They think people from the Milky Way – I guess they’ll call us Milkites or something – taste like dairy. Mmmmm…. Nice pack of cheese balls coming our way, gotta munch it real good with some barbeque sauce.”

                Suzy laughed, then was quiet. She ordered a beer from the surly bartender and took a swig.

“If you didn’t want to get married and be that white picket fence guy, DeShawn, what would you do?”

DeShawn was strangely silent. “You know what, I don’t know. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a starship pilot. Go all over the galaxy, try to get to Andromeda or something. Like you. Except like, you never grew up, and I did. Sorry. I’m just taking the piss.”

“It’s all good. You can be the grown up in this household. I can be the little boy forever. It’s not like I’m gonna get any taller. Or age any faster.”

“Yeah, that’s true. What you lack in height you make up in longevity.” That was another thing that separated her from the Callusian side of her family. She was pretty short for a Lumiel or Terran, much less a brawny Denebian. Just in the legs, though, which made piloting the perfect job for her. No real legroom was needed.

“Going to visit any of your… relatives by any chance? I know you don’t get along with them, but if you ever need to go to a funeral or something”, DeShawn laughed, “hopefully of one of your relatives I have a message for one of my friends on Lumiel.”

“Are you serious? Why would you hang out with one of those people, lawl, I can’t imagine you acting all stiff-necked on Lumiel or something.”

“Nah, he’s not a Lumiel. He’s a Terran guy who ended up at one of the colleges, as some sort of psychological counselor. His name is Antoine Rhett Rovelli. We went to high school together. On my homeworld. I think he teaches at Lumiel Central University.”

“What’s the message? I might be able to find him.” Everyone on Lumiel was searchable. That was one of the drawbacks to living there.

“Tell him that I won. Just that.”

“Just that? Yeah, I’ll definitely remember that.”

“He’ll let me know if he got it. Trust me on this one.” DeShawn winked.

  * * *



Taking _Hope_ out for a jaunt to the Lum system was like swatting a fly with a cannon, but it was the only ship that Suzy had. She could also get it fixed, hopefully. That was what she was going to the damn dry rock for. Nothing more. Suzy closed her eyes as the stars, like lines, passed by in the dream-state of lightspeed travel. The ship slowed down, dropped out of lightspeed and drifted toward the too-familiar system. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach as she approached Lumiel and hailed ground control.

“Lumiel Ground Control at Lum City to unidentified independent vessel. Please identify yourself.”

“This is Soraya… cheDavi of the _Hope_ , a private ship. My purpose in this visit to Lumiel is to visit Lumiel Central University for ship repairs as well as social purposes.”

“Welcome back to Lumiel, Soraya. Your ship and identification have been cleared for arrival.” _That was quick, thought Suzy. But then again, she thought resentfully, this is Lumiel._ “Please turn your controls to neutral and automatic, and land the shuttle at the following coordinates.” The ground controller beamed her a set of coordinates, and Suzy got into the tiny shuttle at the back of the ship.

 As she exited the shuttle and breathed the dry, harsh air of her father’s homeworld, it was like a clock began to tick. She would drop off the ship at the university’s mechanical division, pay, and go to see this Antoine person as soon as practicable. Then she would pick up the ship and get the hell out of here. She could feel the invisible walls closing in on her already.

“I do not know if such a thing is possible,” said the light skinned woman at the front desk, whose dark blonde hair was cut into a severe, Lumiel bob.

Suzy showed her the money on her credit card’s vidscreen. “Is it possible now?”

The receptionist’s lip quirked a bit, and she raised an eyebrow. “I will be back shortly.” She came back, looking a bit resigned. “Your appointment will be first thing in the morning, tomorrow. Are these – “she repeated a sequence of numbers “the correct coordinates and bar code for your ship?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Everything was going as planned. Suzy suppressed a little, very un-Lumiel cry of happiness.

  * ** 



Suzy stepped out of the low, red-stone building and onto the campus itself. The sun had gone down a little, so it wasn’t as hellishly hot as when she’d first gotten here. Palm trees swayed lazily in the distance as young Lumiel people, dressed in stiff, grey clothing, walked by quickly and without much conversation. Here and there, a Terran looking person or the occasional Denebian kept a slower pace, moving more like the palm trees, adding a relaxed flavor to the tense university, famous for its academic strictness.

She walked across the quad, passing by a fountain as it began to spray. Students gathered around the fountain’s edge to enjoy the coolness and relax in the evening breeze. She went into a slightly taller red-stone building and found the cafeteria. Ordering a very familiar dish of white cassava with cucumbers, peas, and some chickenesque substance in brown sauce, Suzy settled into one of the computer kiosks at the wall of the seating area.

The screen was rather bland and immediately accessible. She remembered that from college. Not this one, but all the schools in the Lumiel world were standardized, and there was always a certain number of machines open to the public. She pulled up the directory and searched for this Rovelli person, whoever he was. _Not in any of the academic departments._ Maybe the career center? Nope.

She tried once more, and desperately looked in the health department. Residential life and health. Got it. Antoine Rovelli was apparently what they called a residential life counselor, or, from the looks of it, a glorified doorman or superintendent. _Nice. Not the kind of Lumielized Terran that I’d been dreading._

Antoine’s office was a small nook at the entryway of an immense, modern high rise that served as storage space for thousands of students, professors and staff at the school. Suzy didn’t even have to knock to enter his office, it was that casual.

“So what can I do for you, Miss…”

“Freedman. Suzy Freedman.” Antoine was a shorter, heavyset Terran with a thatch of wavy, chocolate brown hair and a pale white indoors complexion. He wore the ordinary gray _LCU_ T-shirt favored by many people here, but his shorts were extra-short and hot pink, with a tropical flower pattern. His flip flops were the same hue, indicating an offworld origin for both items.

“Galactic exchange student, I take it?” Antoine seemed very interested.

“Not actually a student here, but a friend of a friend. Used to work in the mines around Barnard’s Star, and my friend by the name of DeShawn Yoder asked me to bring you a message. He says he won.” Antoine cracked a smile. “Just that.”

Suzy barely suppressed a smile herself, and they soon burst out laughing. Suzy didn’t know why she was laughing but Antoine seemed like the kind of guy who could rope anyone into any sort of ridiculous trend. She could see why he’d been assigned as a Terran representative here to Lumiel. He, of all people, could probably get these people to lighten the fuck up.

“Damn, DeShawn’s still at it, huh? I can’t believe he’s still alive. You know I thought he’d have been blown to bits by now. Lucky bastard.” Antoine pronounced it _bastid_ , showing a proximity to the Alphata system.

“Where do you know him from?” Suzy was curious now. DeShawn never talked about the past. Only the future.

“We go way back… how’d a nice girl like you run into a motherfucker like that?”

“Luck of the draw, I guess.”

“Well, you’re lucky to be here. Lumiel Central is one of the best colleges in town. Say, what did you study at school? Or were you not a college type? Hey, it’s not for everyone. I just started the damn thing myself. Computer engineering.”

“Not here, I went to a different school. But yeah, also one of the Lumiel system of schools. I took aerospace engineering, but dropped out after the first two years. Just had to get away from this _environment,_ you know?”

Antoine shook his head. “Yeah, I go a little bit cuckoo here too. Some of the kids here are so used to it because of the family thing. Is your family Dokkar or do you have some ancestry from around here?” As a Terran, Antoine was a bit scared to discuss race.

“My dad’s from here. My mom’s side is Denebian, though, and I mostly grew up there.”

“Love Denebian football. One of my favorite sports on GalactiNet. Who’s your favorite team?”

“Probably the Atlas. As I’m from Atlantis, gotta support the home team. But seriously, I couldn’t fit in on Deneb, just wasn’t athletic enough I guess, so I came here for college. Didn’t fit in, either. Then it was off to the asteroid belt to pay back those damn student loans.” She couldn’t believe she was telling her life story to this total stranger. There was just something about him…

“It’s cool. I hear ya. You see me, I look Terran right? I’m from Alphata 7 and all that, working class boy. Moved to Pennstate – that’s Tau Ceti 8 as a kid and then I met that knucklehead, Yoder, and we had a great time. Then I got into an accident. Found out that my grandma was Lumiel, that I couldn’t take Terran blood transfusions and had to use substitutes until we could get a batch cloned.

Then it was college time, you know? I wanted to check out the Lumiel side of my heritage, ‘cuz I’ve been trapped in the boondocks forever with my corn farmer parents. Got a job at a place called The Obsidian Building, working front desk. Worked my way up, ‘till I ended up here at the college. And now I’m here.” He smiled. “Are you just here to see me, or any other reason, maybe get your ship fixed or something?”

“How did you know?”

“Everyone gets their ship fixed around here, even if they’re passing by for a few days. Gotta soup it up, you never know when you’ll be coming to this part of the galaxy next. What’s it for?”

“Speed enhancement and – what do you know about ships?”

“Guess what my other job is around here.”

  * ** 



The orbiting hangar at Lumiel Central was the size of ten Denebian football fields, laid end to end. Stainless steel, reinforced with platinum and plasticrete, stretched as far as Suzy’s eye could see. She walked alongside Antoine and a tall Lumiel woman – Dr. Afreen cheTarek – as they approached the _Hope_. There were so many different types of ships here, most of them far fancier than _Hope_ on the outside. Antoine had told her that many wealthy galactic used the university as their personal mechanic.

“Isn’t it a bit degrading to be … a commercial mechanic for subspace celebrities like Jada Mansfield and Kimberley Circassian?”

“Not at all. It might make us a bit busy, but it provides scholarships for the students here and helps to fund authentic research,” said Afreen. Lumiel did what was right for Lumiel, most of the time.

“I see.” They were next to the _Hope_ , and an assistant climbed down from the tall ladder. Another could be found welding on the top.

“Now your ship, now that’s real research.” Afreen said this with a bit of delight. “I am glad that you brought it in. I understand that the receptionist was a bit cold until she received the payment; the front office staff doesn’t get what’s going on and just wants to separate celebrities from their cash. I assure you that this is research related, and that you will definitely receive a refund.”

 

After all, it looks like you actually know what you’re doing.”

Suzy cracked a smile. “This is like, the only place in the galaxy I can go to have this done. I’ve been cramming in shialite packets to try to boost the engine. But it’s the engine itself that’s the issue. To be honest, I’m not actually from around here – I’m from Barne- the Barnard’s Star region. Shialite mining’s my line of work.”

The assistant – a small, ivory-skinned Lumiel man with red hair – clambered down and dropped to the ground.

“Malik, what’s the status of this ship?” Afreen asked.

“It’s holding steady. There’s way more shialite packets and the engines are being run through five boosters. That’s three more than recommended. I’m amazed it’s still working.”

Afreen turned to Suzy. “Suzy, I want to introduce you to my postdoc, Malik chaWalid. He’s going to be taking care of the _Hope_. His specialty is solid-core extruded engines and fixing them.”

“Hi Malik, I’m Suzy from the Barnard star system. Thanks for looking after my ship.” She shook his hand.

“Suze, I’m just wondering… _Hope_ is a small vessel and in your line of work, and for most people who aren’t operating supra-lightspeed transport ships, I would say that you already have enough power and speed. Even if you wanted to get to the rim in half an hour, like you were running a rimworld ambulance with very critical patients here to Lumiel, I don’t see why you would need anything more than you already have.

I mean, your work is very good. It’s holding steady, and this is really the fastest type of engine that even we have that’s been tested for commercial use.”

Suzy sighed. This was why she didn’t talk about her ship around anyone but DeShawn. But she was here, and she had nothing to lose if they thought she was nuts. After all, LCU had a pretty well-stocked psych ward and she’d get a good trip out of it if nothing else, if she wound up in a net by the end of her speech.

“I know this sounds crazy, but I’m interested in extragalactic exploration. Everywhere in this galaxy has been trampled, dug up, over-mined. I’m not really getting anything out of the Barnard’s Star region except for dwindling stocks of shialite. Remember reading in those history books when people first left their homeworlds to explore new places, discovering new resources and meeting new cultures?

And, to be honest, there’s really nothing left in this galaxy for me. At least, I don’t feel like there is.”

Malik was taken aback, but Afreen responded. “You understand that extragalactic is very dangerous and underexplored, right? There’s actually projects at this university that are looking into these possibilities. But there’s never enough resources and most of all, we can never find qualified volunteers.

If you are truly interested in the extragalactic field, there are a few studies going through private Lumiel agencies who are looking for test subjects. I’m afraid that _Hope_ ’s capabilities are really stretched. We do have engines that are capable of this but they cannot fit into such a small ship.”

Suzy’s heart leapt a bit. There were really people looking into extragalactic work? “Dr. Afreen, I am truly interested in these opportunities.”

“We can keep _Hope_ here while you are traveling, you understand, because it is research and you don’t have to pay for anything. Perhaps we should continue this conversation over dinner, since it is getting late?”

“I am most certainly interested.”

  * * *



Dinner was in the faculty cafeteria, a small room off to the side on the third floor of Administration. The food was a tiny bit better, thought Suzy, but not by much. Afreen and Antoine ordered a couple of vegetable and bean curd curries which they shared over bland flatbread and millet rice, in the Lumiel style. One of them blended okra and lotus stem, two of Suzy’s least favorite foods from childhood, but she rolled it up in bread and took a bite anyway. It wasn’t too bad after all.

“So what are the details of this project, Dr. Afreen? I understand that the Republican science service hasn’t been in operation for a long time. At least, not since either of us have been alive.”

“This is a private agency called Onyx Company. They are related to the Onyx Mining Collective, have you heard of them?”

“Yes, Onyx was one of the bigger shialite distribution companies out by Barney. I remember selling them a few rocks here and there, but they weren’t, by far, the biggest. So what exactly is this about, and what will my responsibilities be? I’m all ears.”

Afreen tented her fingers and looked intently at Suzy, like a teacher about to give a lecture to a child. Suzy ignored it.

“You understand that Andromeda is much further away than any destination within the galaxy? Take the distance from one end of the outer rim – I don’t know, the Dokkar rim area like Karastan or something – and then go all the way to the other side, around the Barnard’s Star mining area. Then multiply that by twenty-five, and you’ve got the distance from the rim of the Milky Way to the furthest rim of Andromeda.”

Suzy nodded. “Why do you think my ship looks like that? It’s gotta go fast. Faster than regular lightspeed or regular supra-lightspeed.”

“Just making sure that I got all the disclaimers out. I hear ya on that. I totally understand that this is what you’ve been looking for, for a long time. You know that we can’t send you out there alone, though, right?”

Suzy put her spoon down. “Who else will be there?”

“Whoever we can find. Unfortunately. There’s not a lot of demand, I hope you know.”

“I see.” Suzy had wanted to go where she could just disappear to society. All of society. She thought about it for a second. “Look, if it’s far away from this place, I guess I could deal with a roommate or two. At least for the ride there.”

Afreen gave her a bit of side eye, hoping she’d made the right choice in even telling this seemingly immature brat about this project. “And you’ll have to take notes, and send them back. Otherwise, what’s the point of the experiment at all? Look. I understand that getting away from this galaxy means so much to you.

To be honest, I don’t know if you’re the most ideal subject. But our scientists… They don’t want to take such a risk, do you understand? But you’ll be there as an employee of LCU. This is the only way. I hope that your passion for exploration is able to outweigh whatever crazy urges you have to just escape and be free from society. This is the most important thing.”

There was that word again, ‘crazy’. The blow was softened a bit by Suzy’s expectation that it would be used against her, but she thought about what Afreen had said a little bit more, and she realized that she hadn’t botched her opportunity to go on this trip.

“I absolutely promise. Anything for this chance. I truly appreciate everything you’re doing for me.” And she did. It had been all unsolicited. She hadn’t even expected to get this far.  

  * **



Antoine had been nice enough to let her stay. Suzy usually slept in her ship on trips, or in some sort of crappy hostel if something was wrong with her ship. She sat on the couch next to Antoine’s bed and tried to engage him in some light talk.

“So… Antoine. Have you been keeping up with DeShawn out in the Barney system much?”

“Not really. I saw him on TwitNet the other day, a first, and he said he’d call me when he reached Paterson IV. It’s hard to get reception out there on Barney. There’s very little signal.”

“Yeah, he decided to quit around the same time I did. We made a bit haul of shialite that time. Asteroid mining’s not a life. Not a real one, at least.”

“Oh? Thought it was your ruling passion.”

“Nah. Remember that conversation we had with Afreen? Mining’s close enough, though it sucks. It gets you out into space and away from people. But it’s no substitute for the real thing. Besides, DeShawn’s a different kind of character.”

“Yeah, that’s DeShawn for you. As conventional as it gets. But the economy’s crap. Sometimes he had to take whatever job he could. I’m gonna go visit him a bunch on Paterson. It’s a great place to raise a family, a nice agricultural world and all. Who knows, maybe after my extended college education, lawl, is done, and I’m ready to be a real adult, I might move there and get the wife, kids and white picket fence.”

“Hopefully it doesn’t have to come to that. At least not for me, that is.” Suzy tried to imagine herself married to Antoine or DeShawn or any of the other guys she knew, with a kid or two and a backyard full of chickens. She couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t imagine doing park and ride to some horrible job in a horrible cubicle farm while the kids went through metal detectors and sat in halls with 60 or 70 other kids, competing in the rat race. That was too much like Deneb. Or Lumiel, rather, except on Lumiel there’d just be one kid and hardly any chickens. “I’m too much of a space-faring spirit. Staying planetside all the time just isn’t for me.”

“I hear ya on that one. That’s why there are so many different places to go, people to see. Hold up, there’s a call coming through.” Antoine plugged his cell phone into the holovid.

                “Antoine!”

                “DeShawn, we were just talking about you! What’s that scenery behind you, it doesn’t look like the asteroid belt. Are you in the holodeck or something?”

                “Nah, it’s all real, son, ha ha!” DeShawn smiled broadly. His cheeks were ruddy from sun exposure, and there was a blue sky and a yellow cornfield behind him. Rather than a grey pressure suit, he wore a flannel lumberjack shirt, just a tiny bit open at the neck. “I’m living the dream, baby! This is Paterson IV. Elysium, or something close to it.”

                “Shit, man. I never thought you would beat the odds. My bet was that you were dead. And you remembered that and rubbed it in my fat face, motherfucker.” Antoine laughed like he wanted to hug DeShawn’s mirror image or something like that. “I have someone with me that you might want to see.”

                “Yo, DeShawn, what’s up?”

                “Hey, Suzy! Whatcha doing there in Antoine’s room, you nasty ass ho?” DeShawn was back to his bawdy self.

                “Ew, are you serious, bitch?” She laughed. “Nah, _Hope_ ’s in storage and being looked at by the eggheads at LCU.”

                “You finally getting that ship fixed and gonna escape the galaxy, like man, fuck the Milky Way?”

                “Nah, but they’re sending me out on another one of those missions. I’m gonna get out of the galaxy, don’t worry about that, but they have some special experimental ship where I’m gonna be going with a bunch of other people so we can take notes, measurements, whatever they ask me to do. Totally free. Room and board will be on the ship and I’m not gonna have to worry about rent or bills for years.”

                DeShawn let a whistle escape from between his teeth. “Damn, that’s a sweet-ass deal. If I had heard about it earlier, I would’ve come along. But here, my biological clock is ticking. I need to find a lady, buy a house – hell, I already have the down payment and the whole payment, actually, saved up – and just become a stay at home father, pop out some babies real quick and hunt me some deer. The sweet life. The regular life.” He smiled. “So, when are you leaving?”

                Suzy was a bit surprised because even she didn’t know. “It’s bound to be soon. I can’t keep taking up space in Antoine’s house. I’m gonna ask Afreen first thing in the morning. Then I’ll call you back… wait a minute, what time is it there?”

                “Four PM our time. Well, our day is a bit longer than yours. So when you get up it’s gonna be near bedtime for me. So definitely talk to you in … 12 hours all right? That sounds like a happy medium.”

                “That sounds doable, definitely.”

  * ** *



Afreen and a few other professors were sitting in a small, round sort of auditorium with Suzy and a few other civilians. A small, round skylight opened to the bright cloudless Lumiel day, but the room itself was cool and a tiny bit dark. Suzy looked at the packet she’d gotten – a black envelope, filled with papers. She looked around the seating area and there were about a dozen people there, sitting with envelopes. Although many of them were Lumiel, a large percentage were Terran and there was a Denebian in the crowd.

                “Welcome everybody.”Afreen’s voice carried through the room like an echo in a chamber – Suzy realized that the clever acoustics of the space amplified sounds naturally, so that no loudspeakers were required. “I’m Dr. Afreen cheTarek of the advanced automotive technology program, specializing in starship engine repair and modification.

You are here today because you both have expressed an interest in participating in the experimental extragalactic flight program, and have been accepted for this program. I am here with some colleagues from astronomy and geology, Jalil chaMalik and Omar cheMansur, who are also participating in the project.” The two ivory-skinned, lanky men sitting next to Afreen waved at the crowd.   
                You have a packet with forms that need to be filled out before embarking on this journey. But before this, we will watch a video giving you details about Andromeda and the entire process. I understand that most of you are familiar with this already, but this should fill in the gaps of what you need to know. Professors Jalil and Omar and I are always here to answer your questions.”

Afreen pushed a button on the remote and the clear column in the middle of the auditorium changed to a white pillar of mist, descending from the skylight to the little stage at the bottom. Then the room darkened, and a holovid began to play.

A field of stars appeared, then the screen zoomed out to an image of the Milky Way, its spiral shape spread throughout darkness like an octopus of white light. Then it zoomed out again, so that it was one of a group of galaxies. They were familiar, and Suzy felt like she was back in school. There were a few dwarf galaxies, their small forms in a variety of shapes. There were the nebulous, puffy Magellanic Clouds, blue glowing forms of light. There were several dense regions of starlight, forming pockmarks in the darkness. And then there was Andromeda, known to science as m31, in the distance like a twin spiral of Suzy’s home galaxy itself.

An immense starship appears, like some silver and bioluminescent creature of the deep, and emerges from a small star in the center of the Milky Way – the Lum system, Suzy thought. The screen zoomed in on the spaceship and showed a picture of the inside – the familiar setting of a long-haul starship. But there were other things. There, on the sides, the pods – Suzy barely recognized them. The Lumiel girl next to her muttered something like – _cryochambers, are they cryochambers?_ Something clicked in Suzy’s mind.

“This is the introductory video for the Onyx Company’s mission to the m31 galaxy, also known as Andromeda. If you are watching this video, you have been selected for an experimental mission to Andromeda. This ship, known as _Temperance_ , makes use of the familiar _Corvus-_ class vessel shell, commonly used for long-haul interstellar travel. It combines this familiar model with the new engines developed here at Lumiel Central University.

The engines of the _Corvus_ -class vessels are familiar from interstellar ambulances as well as supra-lightspeed travel for business passengers. They are the fastest ones available, and have been used for emergency purposes for a number of decades. However, in the past few years, researchers here at LCU have been developing the quintuple _Corvus_ engine, which uses speeds of up to 5,000 times the maximum speed attained by _Corvus_.

With the new, untested quintuple _Corvus_ engine, with its average speed of 5,000 kilolumines, the average trip to m31 should take between 3 to 6 months depending on various factors.”

                The starship moved and cut through space, traveling in the cold, empty space between the galaxies. Suzy was mildly disturbed by the emptiness. It was so vast. _But this must have been how the early explorers had felt, going first from planet to moon, then planet to planet, then star to star._ Geometrically expanding distances: first, the short hop to break atmosphere, then to the moons, then from planet to planet, and finally, the distance, more than tenfold the interplanetary, from one star system to another.

                And yet, to the modern traveler, the distance from planet to planet was measured in traffic at disembarkment, the distance from star to star a matter of minutes, the distance from one side of the galaxy to another – with the _Corvus_ and the _Accipiter_ and other classes of ships named for birds of prey – also a matter of minutes, but sometimes a matter of fuel prices.

                “Some of you may have noticed that there are cryochambers in the ship. These will not be used except in the most extreme circumstances. Many people fear cryonic preservation because of certain well-publicized incidents in the recent past. This fear is certainly understandable, but these worries should only apply to private, under-regulated companies – not Lumiel Central University. The cryochambers will only be used in the event that the engines fail, and it takes a far longer time to transport the passengers to their destination.”

                The Lumiel girl sitting next to Suzy breathed a sigh of relief, then turned and smiled at her. Suzy smiled back.

                “There have already been many unmanned missions to Andromeda taking place here at LCU. Contrary to popular belief, this manned mission will not be the first probe of this alleged ‘unknown galaxy’. Many of the probes have come back with various kinds of information. The public’s knowledge of this work is minimal because it is difficult to purchase airspace on mainstream networks in order to spread this news. However, information about this can be found on any of our private networks, and on our TwitNet site.”

                Suzy wondered why there wasn’t much news about any new discoveries lately. Her regular holovid consumption consisted of celebrity sex scandals, old Dokkar lady Tarot card readers selling their visions of the future, and various ads hawking diet products. It seemed that nothing else was on. Now she knew why. Sometimes she watched Dokkar programs in translation, and they seemed to have been doing some sort of space exploration, but nothing much came of it.

  _Government inefficiency,_ she thought. _It’s either us or them._ Them meaning the Dokkar Empire, which was, unlike most other governments in the galaxy, still a going concern. _They’re a buncha reds anyway, with their welfare and their military obsession. The Republic might not exist anymore, but at least it’s better than having a buncha feds breathing down your throat all the time. Man, I’d hate to live there._

“Many of these unmanned missions,” the video’s announcer continued, “were done in collaboration with the Imperial Dokkar Military Space Service. They provided the materials, and we provided the research. There have also been manned flights to Andromeda, but none of them successfully brought back personnel. Many of the ships have been assumed to be lost in transit. The personnel on these missions were all citizens of the Dokkar Empire.”

Suzy sucked air through her teeth, which was usually done in disdain but was now done in surprise. A mild murmur went around the auditorium.

“You will be the first group from the Republic to successfully traverse the galactic barrier. Should you choose to stay, you will be expected to return the forms by tomorrow, via console scan or physically to either of the primary investigators, and be ready to leave by next Monday – one week from today. This is the end of this program. Thank you for watching.”

The screen faded to a white fog, then vanished. The light, emanating mostly from the skylight in the middle of the rounded ceiling, came back. The Lumiel girl sitting next to Suzy leaned close to her and confided:

“This is really making me nervous. Dokkar? And they didn’t make it back? Mmm… I don’t really want to do this. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m only here because I… can’t be anywhere else.” Suzy’s resolve was strengthened.

  * * *



Minutes rolled by. Suzy packed her stuff, not knowing how much to bring on this trip. She crammed clothes, computer stuff, and a few favorite galactic foods into her bag. _Well, I don’t know if I’ll find cheesy puffs in Andromeda, but at least I’ll have a few._ Minutes rolled into hours, and hours rolled into days. Suzy hand-signed the indemnity forms, which described various gruesome means of death, and slipped them under Afreen’s office door.

Hours turned into days, and days turned into a week as Suzy – and one other person, a Lumiel boy of 18 or so, called Ahmed – showed up at the big hangar where _Temperance_ was kept. _Along with Hope, and all the other ships._ She walked all the way to the end of the hangar with Ahmed and the ships kept getting bigger and bigger as she went along. Soon her stuff became a bit heavy, and she stepped on the escalator strip, relaxed, and waited until she got to the end.

When Suzy looked up, she saw the biggest ship she’d ever seen. It was huge, silver, and looked a bit like the one in the video – though not perfectly. The hatch of the ship opened, the door swung down to the ground, and a small staircase rolled out.

A person stepped out. She wore what appeared to be a white, shiny pressure suit, of some fabric advanced enough to repel all dirt and grime. Her features were sharp, her complexion was polished jet blended with mahogany, and her hair was slicked back elegantly. Her ears were Lumiel – that is, coming to a point at the top.

She nodded once. “You may not have met me before. My name is Maryam cheBina. I am a long time Lumiel liaison to the Dokkar Empire, and I have assisted in both manned and unmanned missions to Andromeda. Please come inside.”

The inside of the ship seemed, to Suzy’s uninitiated eye, to take on some sort of strange glow. But it could have been the strangeness of their host that had created this.

“Will any of the professors be coming with us, Dr. Maryam?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Oh.” Suzy and Ahmed walked into the ship and the door closed behind them. Suzy sat in a chair, strapped in her seatbelt, and closed her eyes as _Temperance_ lifted off beyond the star system, into interstellar space, to the rim, beyond the rim, and finally into the long stretch of cold, lonely space between the galaxies.


	3. Chapter 3: Shaquan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Shaquan Bruno of Mars faces a dilemma from the past.

2755 Anno Terrae

 

Small patches of moss littered the splotchy ground between scraggly trees and patches of dry, reddish soil. The sun shone almost white through a thin atmosphere, the sky’s navy blue color barely different from black space. Dr. Bruno stepped over one of those patches, the earth still rocky through thin sneakers meant to mimic barefoot exercise. He took off his air mask. He breathed deeply, then let it out. He breathed deeply again. He smiled, though he felt like the mountain-like air would eventually suffocate him.

“What do you think, Quan?” The thin, blonde man walking next to Bruno put his mask back on.

“Dwayne, I think that we’re just about done. Next month you’ll be able to take that mask off and not notice a damn thing different. It’s all self sustaining. We don’t have to do a damn thing, everything’s been set in motion already. We just have to enjoy the atmospheric incline.”

 Shaquan Bruno took an e-cig out from behind his ear and puffed. The tip of the cig turned a cerulean blue, not unlike the color of the small, pin-sized planet barely visible in the sky. Quan looked at it. _Old Earth_ , he thought. He’d never been there, but soon Mars will be a fair substitute for the real McCoy. Quan puffed out, his breath filling the air with a faint scent of peppermint.   _At last, a world of our own._

“This is it, bro. This is it.” Dwayne’s posture became noticeably more relaxed. “Ten years. Ten years!”

                “You’re telling me.”

                “What do you want to do now? Retire? You wanna look for a nice girl, get hitched, have some little green Martian babies? It’s a bit much, I can tell ya that from experience.”

                Quan raised one dark eyebrow and took another drag on the cig. “Not sure. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, you know? A planet is a very big place. Mars is as big as Earth. Maybe I’ll run for office with this new government, whatever the settlers are planning ahead of us. They could use some advice from us old Mars hands, if they’d be interested at all.” In the distance, Quan could see the telltale streak of a shuttle landing through the atmosphere, somewhere on the far side of the planet. _Why, there’s a couple settlers here already. Maybe._

  * * *



A shuttle landed near the dome settlement of Lincoln, one of the few towns on Mars containing civilians. Granted, they were mostly miners, but the rest of the people here were areologists and other types of eggheads – a totally different species from the common man. The shuttle door opened, and two air-masked figures stepped out – one large and rotund, one short and skinny.

“Damn. This place is really the middle of nowhere. I thought it was supposed to be finished and ready for settlement, Ali?” Jorge Jackson was starting to sweat under this uncomfortable air mask. He adjusted it with one fat hand, and wished he could rip it off, but he didn’t want to die. Not now.

Clayton Ali forced himself to turn toward Jackson. “Yeah, it was supposed to be ready. I don’t know why they screwed it up. We’re gonna have to kick somebody’s ass.” Clayton’s mind rebelled. Jackson had demanded to come here six weeks early, before any of the other Loonies could make it this far. He had to be ahead of the pack, the alpha male. As Jorge always said, free your mind and your ass would follow. After all, a group without a leader was only a rump organization.

“You read my mind, boy.” Jorge gave Clay a hearty thump on the back that almost knocked the skinny man over.

“I aim to please, boss.” He forced a smile.

  * * *



Bellona, the new capital of Mars, was festooned with colorful banners and shiny balloons heralding the election season. Shaquan adjusted his tie, slicked back his wavy, ash brown hair and tried to look as sharp as he could. He looked down at his digipad and checked out the list of speakers. He was there, and his scientist friend Dwayne, and a couple of names he hadn’t expected to see. Jorge Jackson. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. _Well, Mars was a big place._ Quan went over his speech once more and sat next to Dwayne, waiting for the various speakers to go up to the podium.

There were the usual suspects. New migrants to Mars, thrilled to have a fresh start in life. Local political characters, looking to make it big. Small businessmen, hawking their wares. Quan’s stomach rumbled and he went off to a kabab stand, getting in line to have one of those delectable snacks made of vat-grown protein. As he dug into the garlicky treat, he heard Jackson’s name being called. _Jackson. Where have I heard that before?_

As Quan turned around, he saw somebody very familiar. Somebody he’d known ten years earlier and many pounds ago.

  * * 



_Jackson! Jackson! Suck on my crack, son!_ A bulky, blonde guy hurled a rock at the reedy boy walking away from the school.

“Damn, Davonte, whatdya do that for?” Quan didn’t know the skinny kid. He didn’t know if Jackson had done anything fucked up to Davonte.

“It’s Jackson. He’s a rich faggot. And you a freshman, so shut your mouth or you’ll end up like him.”

 


End file.
